Social commerce startup Shop101 snags Series C funding

By Joseph Rai

  • 17 Mar 2020
Credit: Thinkstock

Social commerce firm Shop101 is raising Rs 28.69 crore (around $3.9 million) in fresh capital from its existing investors as part of a new funding round.

The Mumbai-based startup is issuing 166,812 Series C1 compulsorily convertible cumulative preference shares at Rs 1,720 apiece, filings with the Registrar of Companies show.

Vy Capital is investing the most, Rs 13.66 crore, followed by Unilever Ventures (Rs 9.10 crore), Kalaari Capital (Rs 4.55 crore) and Stellaris Venture Partners (Rs 1.36 crore).

Shop101, run by O(1) India Pvt. Ltd, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment till the time of filing this article.

The startup had raised Rs 80 crore in its Series B round of funding in December 2018. The round was led by Kalaari Capital and Unilever Ventures, the investment arm of consumer goods giant Unilever Plc. Previous investors Stellaris Venture Partners, Vy Capital and Ramakant Sharma, co-founder of home décor startup Livspace, had also put money then.

Shop101 was founded in 2015 by IIT Kanpur alumni Abhinav Jain and Aditya Gupta. The company helps small merchants and sellers showcase their products online by helping them create a mobile storefront.

Digital news publication Entrackr first flagged report of the fresh capital raising.

Social commerce startups have attracted significant investor interest in the past few months.

Meesho has so far been one of the biggest beneficiaries of investor attention to social commerce. Last August, the company raised $125 million in a round led by South African tech conglomerate and investor Naspers. In June last year, social media giant Facebook invested in Meesho.

Last month, SimSim, a video-based social commerce app established by former Paytm, McKinsey and Foodpanda executives, raised $8 million in its Series B funding round.

In October last year, at least two social commerce startups raised funding. HappyShappy raised seed funding from a clutch of angel investors. Meanwhile, community-led commerce platform Marsplay raised funding from Venture Highway and a few angel investors including Xiaomi executive Alvin Tse.